What is the return to investing in the stock market? Can we predict future stock market returns? How have equities performed over the last two centuries? The authors in this volume are among the leading researchers in the study of these questions. This book draws upon their research on the stock market over the past two dozen years. It contains their major research articles on the equity risk premium and new contributions on measuring, forecasting, and timing stock market returns, together with new interpretive essays that explore critical issues and new research on the topic of stock market investing. This book is aimed at all readers interested in understanding the empirical basis for the equity risk premium. Through the analysis and interpretation of two scholars whose research contributions have been key factors in the modern debate over stock market perfomance, this volume engages the reader in many of the key issues of importance to investors. How large is the premium? Is history a reliable guide to predict future equity returns? Does the equity and cash flows of the market? Are global equity markets different from those in the United States? Do emerging markets offer higher or lower equity risk premia? The authors use the historical performance of the world's stock markets to address these issues.

Risk and Return for Regulated Industries provides a much-needed, comprehensive review of how cost of capital risk arises and can be measured, how the special risks regulated industries face affect fair return, and the challenges that regulated industries are likely to face in the future. Rather than following the trend of broad industry introductions or textbook style reviews of utility finance, it covers the topics of most interest to regulators, regulated companies, regulatory lawyers, and rate-of-return analysts in all countries. Accordingly, the book also includes case studies about various countries and discussions of the lessons international regulatory procedures can offer. - Presents a unified treatment of the regulatory principles and practices used to assess the required return on capital - Addresses current practices before exploring the ways methods play out in practice, including irregularities, shortcomings, and concerns for the future - Focuses on developed economies instead of providing a comprehensive global reviews - Foreword by Stewart C. Myers

Research into the equity risk premium, often considered the most important number in finance, falls into three broad groupings. First, researchers have measured the margin by which equity total returns have exceeded fixed-income or cash returns over long historical periods and have projected this measure of the equity risk premium into the future. Second, the dividend discount model—or a variant of it, such as an earnings discount model—is used to estimate the future return on an equity index, and the fixed-income or cash yield is then subtracted to arrive at an equity risk premium expectation or forecast. Third, academics have used macroeconomic techniques to estimate what premium investors might rationally require for taking the risk of equities. Current thinking emphasizes the second, or dividend discount, approach and projects an equity risk premium centered on 3½% to 4%.

An authoritative text on cost of capital for both the nonprofessional and the valuation expert -- now revised and expanded In endeavoring to practice sound corporate finance, there is perhaps nothing so critical, nor slippery, as cost of capital estimation. The second edition of Cost of Capital: Estimation and Applications combines a state-of-the-art treatise on cost of capital estimation with an accessible introduction for the nonprofessional. This comprehensive yet usable guide begins with an exposition of basic concepts understandable to the lay person and proceeds gradually from simple applications to the more complex procedures commonly found in the marketplace. New features of the revised and expanded Second Edition include chapters on Economic Value Added (EVA) and reconciling cost of capital in the income approach with valuation multiples in the market approach, as well as expanded coverage of cost of capital in the courts and handling discounts for marketability. Cost of Capital remains an incomparable resource for all parties interested in effective business valuation.

The fifth edition of Introduction to Corporate Finance is a student friendly and engaging course that provides the most thorough, accessible, accurate, and current coverage of the theory and application of corporate finance within a uniquely Canadian context. Introduction to Corporate Finance will provide students with the skills they need to succeed not only in the course, but in their future careers.

Corporate finance is a multifaceted discipline in which everything works in theory but not necessarily in practice. To bridge this gap, intelligently designed and executed surveys are essential in empirically validating conceptual hypotheses and the relative usefulness of various theories. Survey Research in Corporate Finance is a unique summary of state-of-the-art survey research in finance. Baker, Singleton, and Veit catalog and discuss the most important contributions to the field and provide a longitudinal perspective unavailable anywhere else. They offer an objective look at the role survey research in finance should play and illustrate the general and particular aspects of the form this research should take, how it is typically carried out, and how it should ideally be carried out, taking into account considerations developed throughout the book. The book provides financial researchers with a useful overview of survey methodology, synthesizes the major streams or clusters of survey research in corporate finance, and offers a valuable resource and guide for those interested in conducting and reading survey research in finance. Because a variety of views exist on the role of survey research in corporate finance, the authors present key findings from the varying perspectives of finance academics, finance journal editors, and finance practitioners. Synthesizing survey results on major issues in finance and offering knowledge learned from years of communications between academics and practitioners, Survey Research in Corporate Finance enables students and scholars of finance, as well as decision makers in many different kinds of firms, to actually determine how the theories on which their work is based actually play out in practice. This book is an essential, one-of-a-kind reference for any practitioners or academics interested in survey research in corporate finance.